Glove with electrodes

ABSTRACT

A glove with electrodes comprises a pair of flat electrodes  3, 4  which are disposed with a space therebetween on the surface of the palm side of a glove body  2  which is made of an electrical insulating material, an operation panel  30  which is fitted in the vicinity of the wrist on the back or the palm of the glove body  2  to control to supply electricity to the flat electrodes  3, 4 , and lead wires  5, 6  which are fitted to the glove body  2  and electrically connect output terminals  40  of the operation panel  30  and the respective flat electrodes  3, 4 . The respective flat electrodes  3, 4  are touched with a little space between them to a portion of the human body, and a current is passed to the portion for treatment. Thus, the glove body  2  can be put on one hand only to easily treat from a wide area to a small portion by passing a current to any portion of the human body.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to a glove with electrodes, which is usedto treat by passing a weak current to the electrodes contacted to adesired portion of the human body so to electrically stimulating theoutside portion.

BACKGROUND ART

Conventionally, there is generally used a pulse health appliance whichperforms treatments such as stimulation of muscles (EMS: electricalmuscle stimulation), promotion of a flow of lymph, a recovery fromfatigue, and the like by contacting electrodes to a desired portion ofthe human body and passing a weak pulse current to the electrodes.

Such a pulse health appliance is known having various types of electrodeshapes depending on a treating method, an object portion and the like,and there is also proposed a pulse health appliance which has electrodesrespectively attached to the palms of a pair of gloves and connected toa control section including a power supply through wiring. Such gloveswith electrodes are put on both hands and touched with a space betweenthem to a portion to be treated, and a weak current is passed betweenthe electrodes disposed on the respective gloves to perform treatments.

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION

The above-described conventional gloves with electrodes had a problemthat it was difficult to treat a portion which was hardly accessed byboth hands.

When a very small and limited portion, e.g., a portion of crow's feet,is treated, there was a problem that the treating operation was hardbecause it was necessary to operate the electrodes of both gloves.

Besides, because both hands are covered with the gloves, there was alsoa safety problem that it was difficult to operate a switch or the likeso to switch the operation modes to make an emergency stop, or the like.

The present invention was achieved in order to remedy the above problemsof the existing gloves with electrodes, and it is an object of thepresent invention to provide a glove with electrodes, which was remediedthe above-described operational and safety problems by disposing a pairof electrodes on the surface of the palm side of a single glove to makeit possible to perform a treating operation by a single hand.

In order to achieve the above object, a glove with electrodes of thepresent invention comprises a glove body which is made of an electricalinsulating material; a pair of electrodes which are disposed with aspace between them on the surface of the palm side of the glove body; anoperation panel which is fitted near the wrist on the back or the palmof the glove body to control the supply of a current to the electrodes;and lead wires which are fitted to the glove body to electricallyconnect the output terminals of the operation panel and the respectiveelectrodes.

The pair of electrodes are desired to have one of them disposed on abulge portion expanded from the root of the thumb of the glove body andthe other of them disposed on at least the fingertips excepting thethumb of the glove body. When the electrodes are disposed as describedabove, one of the electrodes, which is positioned on the bulge portionexpanded from the root of the thumb of the operating hand, is touched tothe skin of the portion to be treated, and the other electrode on thepad of at least one fingertip excepting the thumb is touched to aportion a little away from the former portion to perform the treatment.At this time, the electrode having the bulge portion expanded from theroot of the thumb is touched to the skin of the portion to be treated,so that the operating hand becomes stable as a whole. And, because theother electrode is disposed on the fingertip which can make fineoperations with ease, a small area can also be treated easily. Theelectrode disposed on the fingertip may be disposed on all of thefingertips or may be disposed on any desired finger.

The electrodes used for the present invention may be any type offlexible conductive material and not limited to a particular type. But,it is suitable to use conductive woven cloth, which is produced byweaving conductive fibers having the surfaces coated with conductivemetal such as silver and electrical insulating fibers at an appropriateratio, because it is good in flexibility and durability.

The glove body is suitably formed of an ordinary thin cloth for glovesbut may be made of any glove material as far as it is an electricalinsulating material with good operability.

The above electrodes are fixed to the glove body with a hot-meltadhesive agent or by sewing. The operation panel of the presentinvention is attached to the vicinity of the wrist on the back or thepalm of the glove body so that the treatment operation is not disturbed.

The lead wires for connecting the electrodes and the output terminals ofthe operation panel may be made of a material different from theelectrodes but preferably formed of the electrodes by extending them, sothat the production process can be reduced, and the number of parts canbe decreased.

The operation panel may have its output terminals directly connected tothe lead wires but preferably has the electrode terminals fitted to theoperation panel side of the lead wires and connected to the outputterminals of the operation panel. Especially, when the electrodeterminals and the output terminals of the operation panel are configuredto have a snap structure so to be detachable freely, it is possible towash the glove body only. And, to securely fix the operation panel tothe glove body, a flat fastener may be disposed on the contact portionsof the glove body and the operation panel.

Besides, it is desirable that a power supply such as a battery to supplyelectricity to the electrodes is built in the operation panel. When thepower supply is a battery which has a low output voltage, it may bedesirable to include a known step-up device for raising the outputvoltage because the treatment generally requires a voltage of about 10to 100V.

According to the present invention, a pair of electrodes are disposed onthe surface of the palm of a single glove body. This glove is put on onehand only, and the treatment can be made easily from a wide area to avery small portion by supplying electricity to the required portion ofthe human body.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a structure diagram showing the palm of a glove withelectrodes according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a structure diagram showing the back of the glove withelectrodes according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3A is a structure diagram showing the front of an operation panel,and FIG. 3B is a structure diagram showing the back of the operationpanel.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing an example of control of the glovewith electrodes according to the present invention.

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

An embodiment of the present invention will be described with referenceto the accompanying drawings.

One embodiment of the glove with electrodes of the present inventionwill be described with reference to FIG. 1 to FIG. 3.

As shown in the drawings, a glove with electrodes 1 comprises a glovebody 2 which is made of an electrical insulating material, flexible flatelectrodes 3, 4 which are fixed to the palm of the glove body 2, anoperation panel 30 which supplies electricity to the flat electrodes 3,4 and controls the operation, and lead wires 5, 6 which electricallyconnect the operation panel 30 and the flat electrodes 3, 4.

The glove body 2 is made of an electrical insulating material which isthin and good in flexibility, such as synthetic leather, cloth coatedwith a synthetic resin, or the like, and the thumb and four fingers areindependently formed from one another. The glove may have the fingerportion formed to have three fingers or as a mitten type.

The flat electrodes 3, 4 and the lead wires 5, 6 are integrally formedof the same conductive cloth. The conductive cloth is formed by weavingabout two to five conductive fibers, which have the surfaces ofsynthetic resin fibers such as polyethylene plated with conductivemetal, into ten non-plated electrical insulating fibers. As theconductive metal, nickel, gold, silver, copper or another conductivemetal can be used. For the flat electrodes 3, 4, a conductive thin metalplate, a metal laminate film, cloth having a conductive coating such ascarbon ink applied on it (carbon printing), a carbon sheet, conductiverubber, silicon or the like can be used.

Then, a process of applying the respective flat electrodes 3, 4 and thelead wires 5, 6 to the glove body 2 will be described.

The flat electrode 3 is disposed to cover from the thumb to the bulgeportion expanded from the root of the thumb on the surface of the palmof the glove body 2. This flat electrode 3 has its portion extended asthe lead wire 5 to the vicinity of the wrist on the back of the hand,and an electrode terminal 7 for connection with the operation panel 30is fixed near the end of the extended portion.

The flat electrode 4 is disposed on the four finger cushions excludingthe thumb on the palm side of the glove body 2 and extended as the leadwire 6 from the little finger to the vicinity of the wrist on the backside of the hand along the edge of the palm on the little finger side.An electrode terminal 8 for connecting to the operation panel 30 isfixed at the end of the extended portion. The flat electrode 4 may notbe applied to all fingers excepting the thumb but may be applied to atleast one of them. The electrode terminals 7, 8 are configured to befreely detachable from the output terminals of the operation panel bysnap-fastening.

In this embodiment, the flat electrode 3 is a negative electrode and theflat electrode 4 is a positive electrode, but they may be used asreverse polarity. And it is also possible to apply an alternatingvoltage to them.

The flat electrodes 3, 4 and the lead wires 5, 6 can be sewn as a Frenchseam so that a sewing thread or the like is not exposed to the surfaceto prevent it from contacting the human skin. The flat electrodes 3, 4and the lead wires 5, 6 can also be fixed to the glove body 2 with ahot-melt adhesive agent.

Then, control for the operation will be described.

For example, a switch 50, a mode switching button 51, an outputadjustment button 52, and an operation check lamp 53 are disposed on asurface of the operation panel 30 as shown in FIG. 3. And, outputterminals 40, 40 which are connected to the electrode terminals 7, 8disposed on the lead wires 5, 6 are disposed on the back of theoperation panel 30. And, a battery 61 is placed as the power supply inthe operation panel 30.

The switch 50 is operated to turn on/off the power supply.

The mode switching button 51 is operated to switch a prescribed mode ofpulse voltage to be output. The prescribed mode includes a plurality ofpatterns with a pulse period of voltage or the like changed.

The output adjustment button 52 is used to adjust the pulse voltage tobe output. This adjustment allows determining a treatment such as acomfort mode, a stimulating mode or the like.

For example, the operation check lamp 53 comes on when the switch 50 ison and remains blinking while electrifying to indicate the operation toa user. It is also possible to change the color of light depending on amode of pulse voltage or to dispose a plurality of lamps for indication.

FIG. 4 shows the structure of the control section of the glove withelectrodes.

A control device 60 comprises, for example, the battery 61, a CPU 63, avoltage amplifying section 62, an output circuit 64, an operation button65, and the operation check lamp 53.

The battery 61 may be either a rechargeable battery or anon-rechargeable dry cell.

The voltage amplifying section 62 raises the voltage from the battery 61by, for example, a step-up device using a coil. And, another devicewhich can raise the voltage can be used other than the step-up deviceusing a coil.

In the output circuit 64, the voltage raised by the voltage amplifyingsection 62 is subject to pulse control so to output a pulse voltage.

Then, a process of controlling the glove with electrodes 1 will bedescribed.

According to information from the operation button 65 such as the switch50, the mode switching button 51 or the output adjustment button 52, asignal is output from the CPU 63 to the voltage amplifying section 62,the output circuit 64 or the operation check lamp 53. Based on theinformation, the voltage amplifying section 62 raises the voltage fromthe battery 61, and the raised voltage is supplied to the output circuit64. The output circuit 64 adjusts the output pulse mode of voltage, andthe pulse voltage is supplied to the electrode terminal 7 of the glovebody 2.

According to the signal from the CPU 63, the operation check lamp 53comes on or blinks to indicate the operating state.

For example, when no current is passed through a voltage feedbackcircuit 66 for several seconds, the voltage feedback circuit 66 cuts offthe main circuit to stop the main current according to a currentfeedback control signal from the CPU 63. And, when it is determined bythe CPU 63 in about several seconds that the current is passing to thevoltage feedback circuit 66, the main circuit of the voltage feedbackcircuit 66 which was cut off is turned on again according to the currentfeedback control signal from the CPU 63. And, when the current does notflow for a predetermined period of time, it is controlled to turn offthe power supply.

The current feedback control signal is output from the CPU 63 to thevoltage feedback circuit 66 to control the voltage feedback circuit 66,so that useless power consumption can be avoided.

Then, one example of actual use of the glove with electrodes will bedescribed.

The operation panel 30 of the glove with electrodes is operated to turnon the power, and the operation mode is determined, so that the glovewith electrodes 1 falls in a treatment standby state. Then, the palmside of the glove with electrodes 1 on which the flat electrodes 3, 4are applied is touched to a portion to be treated. When a small portionis to be treated, the flat electrodes 3, 4 on the thumb and the indexfinger are touched to it with a small distance between them. Thus, apulse current flows through and treats the human body by touching asdescribed above. If both the flat electrodes 3, 4 can be touched to atreated portion with a small space between them, it is not limited tothe above method of use. If safety can be secured, the glove withelectrodes 1 can be put on both hands to treat different portions at thesame time.

As described above, the glove with electrodes of the present inventioncan easily treat from a wide area to a small portion by having a pair offlat electrodes disposed on the surface of the palm side of a singleglove body, putting it on one hand only, and passing a current throughany portion of the human body. And, because the operation panel havingthe power supply in it can be removably attached to the body of theglove with electrodes, the glove with electrodes can be used codeless,and the efficiency of work for treatments can be improved. Besides, theswitching operation can be performed by one hand because the treatmentcan be performed by another hand, so that it is easy to switch theoperation modes, and the power can be shut off instantly in case of anemergency stop. Thus, safety can be improved.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY

The glove with electrodes of the present invention can easily treat aportion of the human body by passing a current to it and can be producedcommercially.

1. A glove for electrical treatment of a human body, comprising: a glovebody made of an electrical insulating material; a pair of electrodesdisposed with a space between them on a surface of a palm side of theglove body, the electrodes being made of conductive woven cloth composedof conductive fibers having a conductive coating on surfaces thereofwoven into electrical insulating fibers; an operation panel fitted nearthe wrist on a back or the palm side of the glove body to control asupply of a current to the electrodes; and lead wires fitted to theglove body to electrically connect output terminals of the operationpanel and the respective electrodes.
 2. The glove according to claim 1,wherein the glove body includes a palm, four fingers and a thumb, andwherein one of the electrodes is disposed on a bulge portion expandedfrom a palm side of a root of the thumb of the glove body, and the otherof the electrodes is disposed on a tip of at least one of the fourfingers of the glove body.
 3. The glove according to claim 1, whereinthe conductive coating includes silver.
 4. The glove according to claim1, wherein the electrodes are fixed to the glove body with a hot-meltadhesive agent or by sewing.
 5. The glove according to claim 1, whereinthe lead wires are formed by extending the electrodes.
 6. The gloveaccording to claim 1, wherein the operation panel is connected to thelead wires via electrode terminals.
 7. The glove according to claim 1,wherein the operation panel is detachably connected to the electrodeterminals.
 8. The glove according to claim 1, wherein the operationpanel includes a power supply for electrifying the electrodes, a currentfeedback circuit to receive feedback current from one the outputterminals, and a central processing unit to stop the electrifying of theelectrodes by the power supply in accordance with a predetermined timeduring which the feedback current does not flow.
 9. The glove accordingto claim 8, wherein the power supply includes a battery, and theoperation panel includes a step-up device for raising the voltage of thebattery and electrifying the electrodes.
 10. The glove according toclaim 1, wherein the conductive woven cloth includes about two to fiveof the conductive fibers woven into ten of the electrical insulatingfibers.
 11. The glove according to claim 1, wherein at least one of theelectrodes is sewn to the glove body by a thread such that the thread isnot exposed to contact the human body.
 12. The glove according to claim11, wherein the at least one electrode is sewn to the glove body as aFrench seam.
 13. The glove according to claim 1, wherein the operationalpanel includes a current feedback circuit to receive feedback currentfrom one of the output terminals, and a central processing unit tocontrol the current feedback circuit in accordance with the feedbackcurrent.